 | All our hidden gifts (Gifts) Author: O'Donoghue, Caroline | |
| Price: $9.01 | ||
Summary:
Maeve's strangely astute tarot readings make her the talk of the school, until a classmate draws a chilling and unfamiliar card-and then disappears.
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: UG Reading Level: 4.60 Points: 14.0 Quiz: 515496 |
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 01/01/2021 Gr 9 Up—Getting detention is not out of character for Maeve Chambers, but when she is assigned to clean out the closet in the basement of her private school, she finds a mixtape and a deck of tarot cards that set her on a dark path. O'Donoghue expertly blurs the lines between the real and the unreal as readers are swept up in Maeve's journey to undo the wrongs she thoughtlessly causes, from causing the disappearance of her former best friend to unintentionally empowering the cultish leader of a conservative youth group that promotes hate speech and cruelty. With a deft hand, O'Donoghue crafts a narrative that is steeped in both classic gothic atmosphere and contemporary representation: Maeve, who is white, grapples with her privilege against the backdrop of the paranormal as she considers the ways in which Roe, her nonbinary love interest; Fiona, her Filipina friend; Jo, her queer sister; and Lily, her former BFF with hearing loss have to navigate the complex and sometimes hostile landscape of modern Ireland. Stefanie Caponi's tarot card illustrations are hauntingly perfect companions to the text. Much like the novel, the cards appear deceptively familiar at first glance. The stakes are high, the narrative is nuanced, and the climax and resolution are refreshingly unexpected. VERDICT Expect readers to fall into this blurred tale of the normal and the paranormal.—Jen McConnel, Queen's Univ., Ont. - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Booklist - 04/01/2021 *Starred Review* Maeve, an average girl at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school in Ireland, is always in trouble for her jocular personality and because of how difficult it is for her to learn regular school subjects. After she throws her shoe at a teacher (though, as she objects, “I didn’t hit him!”), she’s given the punishment of cleaning out a closet in the moldering basement of the Victorian house where her school is located. Along with decades of junk, she finds plenty of 1990s contraband . . . and a pack of tarot cards. Thanks to YouTube, she learns the meanings behind the different cards quickly, and is telling fortunes (for a price) at school the next day. In the weeks that follow, Maeve embarks on a tentative romance with Roe, the elder, genderfluid sibling of her ex-best friend, Lily. When Lily is drawn to the tarot readings, old hurts resurface, and Maeve wishes Lily gone—a wish that, weirdly, seems to come true. Did the creepy Housekeeper tarot card come to life and steal Lily? Is Maeve truly a witch? There’s an air of creepy mysticism to this uncommonly well-crafted urban fantasy, and O’Donoghue deftly weaves real-world and paranormal story aspects together. Recommended for all libraries. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.
